Late Cretaceous bimodal magmatism,northern Ellesmere Island:isotopic age and origin

Abstract

In the Yelverton Bay region of northwestern Ellesmere Island, bimodal intrusive and volcanic rocks are associated with a major fault in the Proterozoic–Cambrian rocks of the Pearya Terrane. The Wootton intrusion consists mainly of gabbro with lesser amounts of granitic and hybrid rocks; the Hansen Point volcanics are composed of felsic rocks and basalt. Plutonic zircons are very slightly discordant, but volcanic zircons have unusually high degrees of inheritance. Interpreted U/Pb zircon ages of 92.0 ± 1.0 Ma for the Wootton intrusion (assuming a wide range of inheritance ages) and of [Formula: see text] for the Hansen Point volcanics are close to the 93 Ma average of hornblende K/Ar dates obtained earlier for a small quartz diorite pluton in central northernmost Ellesmere Island. All fall into the early Late Cretaceous and indicate correlation with mafic volcanics of the Cenomanian–Turonian Strand Fiord Formation of eastern Axel Heiberg Island. The upper intercept age for the Hansen Point volcanics ([Formula: see text]) suggests that the felsic component in the bimodal suites was in part derived from the upper Middle Proterozoic (Neohelikian) basement gneiss. Limited field observations on the Wootton intrusion also are compatible with the hypothesis that the granitic component represents sialic basement, melted by mafic intrusion at depth during an extensional tectonic regime.